The Idea of Progress eBook

The idea of Progress could not help crossing the Channel.
France and England had been at war in the first year
of the eighteenth century, they were at war in the
last, and their conflict for supremacy was the leading
feature of the international history of the whole
century. But at no period was there more constant
intellectual intimacy or more marked reciprocal influence
between the two countries. It was a commonplace
that Paris and London were the two great foci of civilisation,
and they never lost touch of each other in the intellectual
sphere. Many of the principal works of literature
that appeared in either country were promptly translated,
and some of the French books, which the censorship
rendered it dangerous to publish in Paris, were printed
in London.

It was not indeed to be expected that the theory should
have the same kind of success, or exert the same kind
of effect in England as in France. England had
her revolution behind her, France had hers before
her. England enjoyed what were then considered
large political liberties, the envy of other lands;
France groaned under the tyranny of worthless rulers.
The English constitution satisfied the nation, and
the serious abuses which would now appear to us intolerable
were not sufficient to awaken a passionate desire for
reforms. The general tendency of British thought
was to see salvation in the stability of existing
institutions, and to regard change with suspicion.
Now passionate desire for reform was the animating
force which propagated the idea of Progress in France.
And when this idea is translated from the atmosphere
of combat, in which it was developed by French men
of letters, into the calm climate of England, it appears
like a cold reflection.

Again, English thinkers were generally inclined to
hold, with Locke, that the proper function of government
is principally negative, to preserve order and defend
life and property, not to aim directly at the improvement
of society, but to secure the conditions in which
men may pursue their own legitimate aims. Most
of the French theorists believed in the possibility
of moulding society indefinitely by political action,
and rested their hopes for the future not only on
the achievements of science, but on the enlightened
activity of governments. This difference of view
tended to give to the doctrine of Progress in France
more practical significance than in England.

But otherwise British soil was ready to receive the
idea. There was the same optimistic temper among
the comfortable classes in both countries. Shaftesbury,
the Deist, had struck this note at the beginning of
the century by his sanguine theory, which was expressed
in Pope’s banal phrase: “Whatever
is, is right,” and was worked into a system
by Hutcheson. This optimism penetrated into orthodox
circles. Progress, far from appearing as a rival
of Providence, was discussed in the interests of Christianity
by the Scotch theologian, Turnbull. [Footnote:
The Principles of Modern Philosophy, 1740.]